Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

or supplemental investment) to help recapitalize the WIC. The latter episode has received almost
no notice from historians. 22 Reporting on the spring 1635 meetings of the Heren XIX, where they
had represented the States General, Gerard van Arnhem and Frans Herberts wrote that, “Through
God's grace the conquests in Brazil have been brought so far that the trade is now on a good
foot.” 23 However, there had been a discussion of “whether it would be best to leave the trade
open or to reserve it for the company and investors.” Van Arnhem and Herberts reported that,
“the majority were of the opinion that it should remain open,” but that the directors of the
Zeeland chamber, as well as hoofdparticipanten from both Zeeland and Amsterdam, disagreed.
They protested that private trade contravened the company's charter and that profits were flowing
disproportionately to the free traders, rather than to the investors who had assumed the
considerable risks of seizing and defending the colony. The matter was left unresolved, but Van
Arnhem and Herberts evidently sensed that a serious conflict was brewing: at the end of their
report they indicated that “your Excellencies [the States General] should consider whether it
might not be advisable to establish a permanent college” at The Hague to attend to this and other
important matters confronting the company in Brazil. 24
From the perspective of the States General, the problem was not simply that investors
were not receiving the profits they believed they deserved, but that the company was having
22 The verhoging features briefly in two accounts devoted to the history of individual chambers or cities. See J.
Acquoy, Deventer’s Participatie in de West-Indische Compagnie (Deventer: Oud-Archief van Deventer, 1922);
Winter, De Westindische Compagnie ter Kamer Stad en Lande.
23 NA 1.01.04, inv.nr. 5754, fol. 59. Rapport van de Heeren Arnhem ende Herberts van eenige poincten
voorgevallen op de vergadering van de XIX... in Mario ende Aprilis 1635 binnen Amsterdam geholden, exhibited in
the States General on May 14, 1635. “By occasie dat door Godes Genaedigen seegen, de conquesten in Brasil soo
verre syn gebracht dat de trafycq ende handel aldaer schynt een goeden voet te sullen neemen, en is in deliberatie
gelegt off deselve trafycq aen een ieder op sekere conditien daer toe te beramen diende open gestelt dan off die aen
de Comp. offe participanten alleen diende gehouden te werden. De meeste leaden van de vergadering waeren van
opinie dat den handel voor een ieder behorde open te syn.”
24 Ibid. "U. Hog Mog in bedencken off niet diende gebesoineert om een vast en. permanent collegie van
Westindische Comp. te hebben, waer doorcan vasten en. ordre soude werden gehouden in de saechen van de voors.
Comp."
179